Moodle vs. WooCommerce

Moodle is great for any environment where a class or other learning activity needs to be completed in an asynchronous manner. It can be used to post information, create interactive threads for discussion, issue quiz and exam work with grading, track and grade progress, and keep track of attendance. It is an overall wonderful solution for managing asynchronous learning.

WooCommerce is best suited to customers whose website is built on the WordPress platform, and whose development team has a good understanding of plug-in implementation. If your website is not built on WordPress, but on Laravel or React (or any other non WordPress technology), then WooCommerce is not for you. WooCommerce is also great for customers who just need a simple online shopping experience. If your needs involve more complex or immersive features such as timed discounts, pick up locations, delivery reminders, or post shopping feedback surveys, know that you will need to purchase additional add-ons to make to get these features using WooCommerce set up on WordPress.

Incentivized

• Moodle's grade book works well. Assignments are integrated so the grades are recorded automatically.
• Moodle is customizable by administrators, so our version only gives us the options we need. NO Clutter.
• The discussion board offers several options for instructors that help with grading. I use "sum of points", but there are other options as well.

Incentivized

• Free base package means I can use it when I need to and not pay for it when I'm not using it
• I can customize the e-commerce options and integrate the calendar booking
• Payment processing is quick and easy and I can choose my provider

Incentivized

• The interface is not very intuitive. You must know what you are looking for in order to navigate effectively.
• Although installation of Moodle is easy, it is a little more difficult to configure it with your other Learning tools. As an example, LDAP synchronization is a little difficult.
• The interface is a little dated, even though new releases keep coming out (which is great!) none of them really add value to the appearance of the platform.

Incentivized

• Because of how the Wordpress database is structured, WooCommerce isn't great for large or complex e-commerce sites.
• More out-of-the-box options would be nice within the base software.
• Because add-on plugins are developed by 3rd parties, sometimes you get conflicts that break things.

Incentivized

We use it because it is what have committed to back in 2011. Perhaps Moodle will evolve and advance in a positive way that will alleviate most of our user-based gripes? Perhaps it will not appear to be as cost effective given the need for a certain level of engineering and support staff to maintain it at a future level of sustainability? It's hard to say. As an enterprise scale critical application, we like it, but don't love it. Our instructors don't particularly like it at all.

Despite very rare glitches, more connected to an excessive number of plugins, that affect the speed of the site, we are extremely satisfied with the platform, the ability to import and export products, even though we just export them, as we have our proprietary system for updating inventories. We love the ease of upgrading, enhancing, innovating, and the freedom we have to do whatever we want, which is a plus, when you consider Shopify can take down your whole store as they please, if they think you aren't abiding to their TOS or their ever changing set of rules.

Incentivized

Moodle can be used on a tablet, on a mobile phone, and on a PC. It is easy to navigate for learners and figure out for administrators. The learners can easily complete tasks and the administrators can easily track completion. The last thing about Moodle that one may not realize is that it somewhat resembles Facebook in its layout. This means that users are already familiar with the interface and therefore they are more comfortable using it.

Incentivized

It is built on the Wordpress platform, so there are some quirks compared to a dedicated e-commerce product, but it is very intuitive and easy to use, especially for anyone with Wordpress experience. There are numerous great support articles and learning resources available. Significant customization can be achieved with plugins vs other eCommerce platforms, which may require more custom code and have fewer plugin options.

Incentivized

Yes, Moodle is always available. We are self-hosted and Moodle is always up and available. The only time that it is not available is when we are upgrading it each semester. It is then down for just a few planned hours. That is in-between semesters and we let the faculty and students know. We do it on a Friday evening and it is back up within a few hours.

Incentivized

Moodle is an excellent LMS in relationship to any other one that I have seen or used. The pages load quickly and the reports complete in a reasonable time frame. Moodle has taken on Respondus, StudyMate, BigBlueButton, Turning Tech, Turnitin2, Certificates, Attendance, Tegrity, Questionnaire, Virtual Programming Lab, and Badges. All of these programs work right in with Moodle and do not cause any issues. Instructors may also use Camtasia and Snagit software as well as using webcams, downloading videos from the Internet, adding into books, or any of the many other areas within Moodle. Our instructors use the grade books without many problems and really don't ask questions much anymore. We upgrade Moodle every semester and are currently on 2.9+. Our instructors have basically learned to use most of the resources and activities.

Incentivized

Moodle is open source, and must be evaluated in that context, but one also has to provide a fair comparison to competing products with commercial backing. Support varies depending on the component of Moodle. Bug reports in Moodle Core that affect security or stability are dealt with promptly. Functionality requests or features not working smoothly may or may not be addressed, depending on whether the functionality desired matches the "vision" of Moodle HQ. The user community provides excellent support for initial installation and configuration, but more complex questions may go unanswered, unless they are noticed by someone who happens to know the answer. The support forum feature at the Moodle site (the same feature used within Moodle itself) does not provide granular subscription to topic discussions, apparently by design, and Moodle HQ seems resistant to changing this feature.

Incentivized

not muh support

I have used a few sites and they were adequate but my best learning experience was face to face and hands on.

Incentivized

Find a partner who will work with you during the implementation process. Be sure to provide ample training for veteran users on the changes and for newbies on the overall product.

Incentivized

Blackboard has clear advantages in rubric management, and offers a content management system of its own. The largest barrier is cost for smaller or financially-disadvantaged organizations. However, as in any IT project, adequate resources must be made for even "free" software.

Incentivized

We were pretty sure we wanted a WordPress site so that we had more control over the site itself, having been burned by third-party vendor sites before. The fact that WooCommerce integrates so well with WordPress was a big selling point for us. Magento would have been too heavy of a lift for our small dev team and we didn't want to rely on Shopify or BigCommerce (though all of those products could have their merits for other projects or clients).

Incentivized

Well, I administer Moodle for a dozen of our divisions and there is a wide range of flexibility between offerings. I have course instructors who use every module i their course, chock full of videos, pictures, links to web tools for synchronous sessions within the asynchronous course. I also have others who are content with a syllabus, a few pdfs, links to podcast lectures and a few simple assignments. No matter if your organization is big or small, or if your requirements are strict for credentialing or non-existent (for internal know-how), Moodle can accommodate you.

Incentivized

• While it certainly takes more time to develop an online training vs a face-to-face we can offer the same content over and over again and meet a larger audience. There's no way we could have offered these trainings face-to-face to the same size audience. Economically it's just not feasible. Moodle allows us to share multiple trainings on a variety of topics over extended periods of time in a cost effective way.
• The impact on early interventionists is still being evaluated, but we do know that early interventionist now have more ways to access professional development than in the past. The ability to customize the registration page has allowed us to track which agencies in Virginia are having their staff participate and we can see which topics are favored above others.
• Other LMS's were far too costly. Aside from the monthly hosting fees (less than $200 a year), and the time it took to do the initial install and setup, Moodle is free. Once it's setup the only elearning costs are related to the development and creation of each training and then the setup of training on Moodle. This allows us to devote more time and money to the development and creation of more courses vs. the management of the system.
• Minimal tech support for the users is required and most requests are limited to lost/userid passwords. The course designer is able to manage tech support needs for the users because so few requests are received.

Incentivized

• Positive: low cost to start up, and allowed us to start selling right away.
• Negative: better plug-ins have a high cost of entry. For example if you want to do subscriptions you need a paid plugin for it.
• Positive: easily integrates with PayPal and Stripe.

Incentivized